The trick is to get them to buy digital downloads or music subscriptions as well as CDs, which they buy in great quantities. More than 70 percent of the 76 million baby boomers in the U.S. report buying music in the past year, making it the most important buying segment for CDs and an increasingly important market for digital downloads, according to Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for The NPD Group.
Baby boomers born between 1941 and 1964 now account for a third of all music sales. About 68 percent buy CDs. About 26 percent purchase both digital music and CDs, while just six percent purchase only digital music downloads.
Nearly 40 percent of boomers report that they regularly visit the music retailers or the music section of retail stores.
NPD believes more attention to the boomer segment could yield $700 million to $1 billion in potential incremental sales of both CDs and digital downloads from baby boomers.
Nothing personal: Just don't put them on iPod billboards!! That would not, as they say, be a pretty picture
